Where the Water Meets the Sky
by Kennie Barton
Summary: "I will see you again," a promise made where the world ends and the skies begin. "This is not where it ends," a promise made for the only boy Annabeth ever completely loved. A Percabeth one shot inspired by Carrie Underwood's "See You Again".


She sighed heavily propping her head up on her hands while she looked down at her laptop. She should be asleep. She had a long day, filled with near-death training exercises, only a few short hours away. But this laptop was too intriguing, and frustrating to leave alone.  
Daedalus had left her the laptop; it was the single greatest gift she had ever received. But there were so many secrets, so much information, it was keeping her up at night trying to learn all that Daedalus had stored there. And she had just reached the end of another extensive file, which was the cause of her sigh. So much of it made no sense to her, and that was something she could not live with. She needed to know.  
"You should really stop staring at that thing," Malcolm called sleepily from beneath his blankets. "It's no wonder you're so irritable, you're suffering from melatonin deficiency."  
"I'm not irritable," Annabeth snapped, closing her laptop with a sharp click she glared at her half-brother across the room.  
"Whatever," Malcolm stifled a yawn rolling on his side to face the wall. "But you'd better be all smiles tomorrow or Percy will toss you in the canoe lake again." She could hear the grin in her brother's stifled, sleepy voice. She fought to keep a straight face, even in the dark her siblings would know if she smiled at that comment.  
She could hear the snickers of the other sons and daughters of Athena, all of whom were supposed to be asleep. She bit back a smile rolling her eyes, reaching toward one of the empty bunks to get a weapon.  
"Go to sleep," she tossed a pillow at her brother as she stretched out on her bunk, sliding the laptop beneath her pillow. Malcolm let out a loud snore, accompanied by the stifled laughter of her siblings. Annabeth laughed, pulling her blankets up over her slender tanned legs.  
She sighed contentedly, crossing her arms on her pillow and laying her head upon them. Tomorrow she could work more with the laptop, maybe Percy could ad his own ingenuous views on the subject matter to help her understand. She smiled, letting the thought of Percy lull her to sleep.  
It felt like she had only just fallen asleep when Malcolm was smacking her upside the head with a pillow. Her blankets were thrown over the foot of her bunk, her pillow was curled in her arms, and her laptop was proving to be a decent pillow. But the rude wake-up call could not be tolerated.  
"Get up sleepy head, you're oh-so-perfect boyfriend is waiting for you," he grinned behind the pillow, stepping just out of reach. Annabeth opened one eye to see what her brother and second in command was doing, preparing her plans of retaliation.  
"I'm going to kill you," Annabeth leapt from her bed, pillow in hand engaging her brother.  
They were stopped short by the call to breakfast. The siblings dropped their pillows and charged out the door for breakfast, racing their siblings and fellow campers to the dining pavilion. Breathlessly Annabeth and Malcolm fell in their seats at the Athena table.  
"Where's Percy," normally the son of Poseidon is one of the first to arrive for breakfast, generally in his pajama bottoms and either a backwards or inside out shirt. The boy never missed a meal.  
Malcolm shrugged looking toward the cabins, "Maybe he took off," he suggested. "Maybe Tyson came and got him or something."  
Annabeth pursed her lips looking toward the beach. Percy did leave in the middle of the night sometimes. All manner of sea creatures came to him for help since he was a son of the ocean god. That must have been what it was, and he would be back later to complain about whatever it was that had cut his night short.

Dawn came cold and gray.  
There was no word.  
He was gone and there was no word.  
Tyson knew nothing. The distraught Cyclops had set off in search of the missing demigod with the help of some hippocampi when they called him. But the question was still unanswered, what had happened to Percy?  
Grover was panicking, he paced a tight circle inside Percy's cabin wringing his hands and eating tin cans. Nothing anyone said could calm the satyr. He could normally feel Percy, they had an empathy link. Grover could not sense Percy, it was like he did not exist. That was never a good thing.  
Annabeth felt numb. He was gone. A whole week he had been missing. And they knew nothing. Poseidon was looking, a handful of other gods were searching… It was like he simply vanished, and it was tearing Annabeth apart.  
She sat on the beach, watching the cold dawn. Her arms wrapped around one of Percy's jackets she had pulled from his cabin. She held the blue jacket up to her face, breathing in the salty scent, her eyes watering.  
She took a deep, shuddering breath through the jacket once more breathing in the lingering smell of the owner, looking for the point where the ocean ended and the sky began. The gray waters blended with the dismal sky, the sun rose behind a haze, just a pale orb failing to light the beach. The sea was mourning the loss of Percy Jackson. The sky was mourning the missing demigod.  
"I will see you again," she focused on the point where the sky should meet the ocean. Wiping the tears from her stormy gray eyes, she pulled Percy's jacket on. "This is not how it ends."  
She stood up turning from the ocean. He was not in the ocean, Tyson would have found him if he was in the ocean. She would have to lead the search on land. A week had passed and there was no word. He was in trouble, he was alone somewhere, and she was going to find him.  
"I'll carry you with me, until I see you again."


End file.
